


Watch Each Other's Six

by LindtLuirae



Series: Infinity War Hurt Me, This is The Product [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Baby!Tony, Dad!Steve, F/M, Post-Endgame, Some mature content, Time Travel, a fix-it of sorts, don't even ask where this is going, endgame spoilers, rating MIGHT be upped later, watching endgame on my birthday was a mistake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-15 17:43:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18674440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindtLuirae/pseuds/LindtLuirae
Summary: Steve wants the life he's lost back. He wants to righten his place in history and most importantly, he wants to do right by Tony.Dad!Steve, Baby!Tony, Post-Endgame.!!Contains Spoilers!!





	Watch Each Other's Six

**Author's Note:**

> Super unbeta'd. Some writers probably rolled in their grave when I decided to post this. If you wish to fix up my mess, please, by all means, shoot me a text. 
> 
> For the sake of the plot, Howard is 40, not 50 when he has Tony. Peggy is 36, and Steve is 33. 
> 
> If you're not a fan of Steve/Peggy, I don't think you'll like this story.

It’s not a hard choice to make, not quite as hard as one would expect, considering what he’s throwing away. Steve stares hard at the Tesseract in the metal box, commits the finality of it to his memory as he shuts close the case and shoves it back on the dusty old shelf it came from.

The lights ahead flicker ever so slightly like they used to back in the day and a part of him he didn’t even realise was strung so tight loosens and uncoils.

Even the dust in this storage smells like home.

The tug of his heart is stronger this time. It propels him to the rusted green door, and down the brightly lit corridors. He’s wearing a standard green uniform a size too small and even that feels like burrowing into the covers of his bed after a long day.

He turns right, marches on, his heart races wildly, excitedly—nervously. He comes to a sudden halt in front of a newly polished door. He could still smell the cloying scent of paint—it tugs on his memory, pulls him back into a time he and Bucky camped out in the living room waiting for his bedroom walls to try, and him coughing, and Bucky making jokes. 

Steve clenches and unclenches sweaty palms, takes a steadying breath that turns into a few and hesitates. Two words stare back at him, so familiar, he’s traced them a hundred times, memorised every curve, every line. 

His mouth feels incredibly dry. He should go, really, this is madness. He has a life to return to, people to protect, friends to hold… to mourn.

It’s barely a flash, but the thought still hits him like a fist in the gut and his breath catches. Tony Stark’s face in a framed photo on a casket, and Peter sobbing, and Pepper trying hard not to fall apart while Happy shamelessly devolves into tears. It still hasn’t fully sunk in, possibly because he has suppressed it, violently, that Tony Stark—Tony who walks the ground in measured steps because it could barely contain him and that dramatic, lively flair of his presence—could possibly be gone forever.

And isn’t that why Steve hesitates? Because here one form of Tony will live while there, there’ll be none?

Going back means he will have to live with the hollowness of Tony’s missing presence. It means he’ll have to accept it—except that he’ll never hear that self-assured voice snap sarcastically at him again, or see smiling green eyes shining at him or listen to the familiar whir and whoosh of the Iron Man suit— and it breaks him in ways he could’ve never anticipated.

Tony’s always told him to get a life, find happiness. He should, he could, it’s one door away. His mind is almost made up, it’s really not that difficult a choice to make. Beyond wanting a life for himself, Steve Rogers thinks about how much Tony deserves a good one, too. Better than he’s got, so much better. He wants to give him that, somehow, to protect him, somehow.

His hand trembles as he reaches for the handle. He could foresee all the things that could go wrong, if he stayed, and all the things that could go right. Tony, merely a child, but healthy, happy, loved; Peggy, waiting for him, beautiful, his to have always; And Bucky, who he’d kill for, bleed for, die for, alive somewhere, still his old Bucky, and this time he wouldn’t be too late and he would save him.

He twists the handle, strides in before he could irrevocably lose his nerve and fling himself decades into the future.

The office that greets him is empty, clean and neat. There’s a jacket hanging on the backrest of the chair and he reaches for it because a part of this still doesn’t feel real—but it smells like her, he discovers. Like Peach and lemon and warmth. His eyes sting, involuntarily; he’s not a very expressive man, but he aches in a lot of places and he just wants to fall apart, especially when it smells like home.

The door creaks open behind him and every hair on his body stands on end. Steve was never afraid of charging headfirst into a battle but his heart feels so fragile, a million pieces strung together by cheap glue and painful staples. Suddenly, he feels like running.

“...and gave him a call this morning thank you, I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.” Her sweet voice drifts in, the same one locked away in his memories, and the door shut audibly behind her.

For a moment, Steve forgets how to breathe. His back is facing the door and he knows he’s being a coward. But since when did he ever get untainted happiness? What if he ruins this, too?

“May I help you, Soldier?” Ever firm and polite, his Peggy. He hears the shuffling of paper, the rustle of clothes, the echo of her heels and he’s turning around before he could weigh in on the repercussions, the finality of his decision.

“Hi, Pegs.”

She drops the stack of papers that was held precariously to her chest and her eyes widen until too much white is showing. Her hands come up to cover her gaping mouth, “S-steve?" 

“I’m home.” He declares softly, awaiting her reaction, and doesn’t expect her to scramble over the scattering documents and right into his embrace. His breath leaves him in a whoosh and he stares at her, at those beautiful, tear-filled brown eyes, at her smiling red mouth.

“Steve!” She cries, her hands grasping his face like he’s made of fragile glass and really looks at him. Her hands tremble and shake badly so he holds them within his own to steady them. “You’re alive!”

“I am,” he can’t quite resist brushing a stray strand of her hair back, or pressing a kiss to her palm, or burrowing his face into her soothing touch.

He’s only slightly taken aback at the sudden feeling of her lips over his when she drags him closer and eagerly presses against him. But he is wholly knocked off his feet by the uncomfortable heat that fills him head to toe having her this close.

She pulls back, tears spilling over rosy cheeks which she hastily wipes. “I’m—so glad to see you! It’s been so long— you’re alive!”

“Yeah, about that….”

 

* * *

 

“So you’re Captain America. From the future.” Howard Stark says, not fully impressed and looking more than a little sceptical.

“Technically I’m Captain America from the past but I was frozen for seventy years and by the time I woke up New York City had seventy-storey buildings. They call me the man out of time.”

“So you’re… our Steve?” Howard mulls, twirls a pen in his hand and regards Steve.

Cap looks the same. Howard looks different, older, more jaded. He doesn’t know this Howard, but Howard knows him.

“Yes,” Steve replies and relishes in the reassuring squeeze of Peggy’s hand over his own.

“Tell me about this mission again, the Time Heist?” Howard leans forward, both elbows on the table, and staples his fingers under his chin. When did Howard become so serious? Steve remembers the man who cracked jokes in an air jet whizzing over a warzone and struggles to reconcile the two personas.

In all honesty, Steve isn’t quite sure how much more he could talk about that mission. It’s still too soon, he’s fresh out of battle, a measly few days separate the time in which they buried his two best friends and now.

He tries, anyway, and starts the tale over: “His name was Thanos, one day he swooped by like the son of a bitch he was and he wipes off half of humanity….”

* * *

Peggy paces back and forth in her living room, and Steve watches her from his perch on the couch. He’s only slightly amused—if only she wasn’t so distressed by how they are going to announce his return to the world. If he could, he would never.

“Pegs, come on,” he gets up, feeling restless and finds himself taking up her personal space.

She blushes prettily, and her warm brown eyes sparkle with something as she comes to a stop and they’re almost chest to chest. He tries to recall when he had grown so bold.

“It’s going to be fine.” He pacifies, and his fingers flutter over the back of her own in silent permission.

He smiles when her fingers sink into the nooks between his own. “They don’t need to know yet.” The silent ‘I don’t want them to’ echoes in the space between them, heavy with unsaid promises.

“And then what?” Her eyes roam his face, again and again, that he wonders if she’s memorising his features. “What will you do? Where will you go?”

One of his arms snakes her waist, and he raises their entangled ones as he tugs her to the side. They fall into a much-awaited dance, into a dream Peggy has had, into a fantasy Steve keeps relieving.

“We will dance. Everyday.” He declares and delights in the shy grin that stretches her lips. “As much as we want.”

“And nothing else will matter,” he continues, softer, as he leans closer into her warmth, “because I’ve saved the world a few times, and now I just want to come home. To you.”

The palm on his shoulder squeezes, and then skims up the side of his neck and curves around his cheek. “When did you become so suave?” she finally says, teasingly.

He laughs, and it feels like a release, “The twenty-first century teaches you a few things.”

She drags a thumb over his cheekbone, and gentle fingers card through his hair. Her nails scratch on his scalp—it’s the most soothing gesture he’s had in so long—and she entangles her hand in his blond strands and draws his face closer to hers, the bold Peggy he remembers.

“Welcome home, Steve,” she utters just as their lips touch, and their dance has loosened all the tension that resided in his bone for a century that he finds himself melting into her.

 

* * *

 

The fan above spins lazily, gentle whirring the only sound in the otherwise quiet house.

Steve exhales gently, hypnotised by the peace locked away between those four walls. Warm, late afternoon sunbeams stream through the chiffon curtains; they cast broken strands of light over their twined bodies, warm yellow over battle weary skins.

His fingers mindlessly trace the bullet scars over her shoulder, he doesn’t know how she’s got them but he longs to hear her stories.

She’s not his first, not even his second. It feels like a lifetime ago when Bucky used to set him up on dates, and that first late night fumble in a dark, musty storage room with a brunette.

The second memory is tinged with pain, and his heart lurched at the loss. He recalls Natasha, her twinkling eyes and her mirth as she laughed at his blushing cheeks, wondering in her lilting, teasing voice if he’s ever seen a ‘pair of tits’ before.

They weren’t in love, but it’s the closest he’s been to it since Peggy.

He runs his hand down her arm, fingers dancing over paler scars, and breathes in the vanilla scent of her hair.

He doesn’t think he’s her first either. Her hands had moved surely, and the wicked dance of her lips spoke of experience as she stole his breath for her own. The rhythm of his heart falters and stutters just at the thought of it, the memory still so vivid, and he squeezes her closer to him.

There’s a butterfly-like flutter of eyelashes on his chest as she stirs, and she hums softly, nuzzling his chest, seemingly content staying right where she is.

Steve smooths a palm up to the curve of her hip and tries to ground his emotions. But instead, he thinks about how he wants this, every day, for as long as they live. He thinks about how up until yesterday he never thought having any of this was an option. And he thinks about this feeling of completion, like he’s found his missing pieces, and how being whole is such a foreign sensation that he hadn’t known what he was missing until he’s had a taste of it.

“What’s got you thinking so hard?” Her sleep-addled voice breaks through his musings and she reaches to smoothen out the faint crease between his brows. “I can hear you in my sleep.”

Endless blue eyes meet chocolate brown as they look at each other; he feels like he’s sinking, she feels like she’s drowning, there’s a tornado of emotions locked deep down trying to resurface and he’s afraid it will destroy the both of them.

He lets out a wavering breath, and blurts: “Marry me.”

She stares at him, and there’s a minute widening to her eyes. “What?”

He twists on his side, her head falling from his chest to his bicep and presses his forehead against hers, “Marry me Pegs. Be my wife.”

“Steve… I _just_ got you back.” She pronounces, and her eyes momentarily cast down, breaking contact with his.

“And I’m not going anywhere.” He promises. “I’m back. I’m here to stay.”

“But Steve…” she trails off, clearly conflicted.

He drags a hand up and down her back, draws courage from the smooth feeling of her skin under his touch. “Listen to me,” he pleads, suddenly afraid of breaking the fragility of the moment, “The world has taken so much from us… but it gave us this back… I’m not going to squander it. I want my life back.”

She smiles tentatively, brushes her hand through the hairs at the nape of his neck, “This is not a battle you need to charge head first into. I’m not going anywhere either. I’m right here where you left me.”

In a burst of emotion, his hand tangles in her hair and he slants his mouth hotly over hers. She sighs and makes a sound that slithers over his body like a shiver as she returns his kiss. 

Hands roam over him, hot and electric, as she wriggles closer. Steve has to break contact as he shifts his weight onto his elbow and his forehead touches down against hers again. There’s so much he still wants to say but he doesn’t know where to start.

“It’s okay,” she posits, bracketing his face between her hands. “I promise.”

A part of him still wonders if he’s doing this right, when he kisses her again, a wet tangle of tongues, and reaches blindly for the drawer to retrieve another condom.

She snatches it away, her teeth on his lip and he groans, a completely involuntary sound, as he hears the packet being ripped open.

“What?” He asks breathlessly, when they part from the lack of oxygen, and hisses when he feels her hands on him.

“Shh,” she strains down as she rolls the condom down his length and Steve feels his face heating up, a burning blush spreading down his body.

He hides his face in the curve of her neck, as he parts her thighs and sinks inside her and they both clutch onto one another for an anchor. She mewls softly, and he’s overcome by the surprising urge to make some kind of noise.

Her heel presses into the back of his thigh as she urges him closer and he takes a quick gulp of air before he eases his hips backs and presses into her again. They both gasp, equally breathless and her nails sink in his shoulder as he repeats the motion, again and again until they’ve set up a rhythm that soon becomes a familiar dance, too.

* * *

When he visits Howard the following week, he’s greeted by his wife, Maria, looking vaguely harried. He immediately attributes it to the distressed cries of an infant drifting from within her house.

Steve blinks, once, twice, and then his brain short-circuits as he comes to a very sudden and shocking realisation. It’s Tony. Recently born, baby Tony.

“You must be Steve,” Maria says and moves aside to let him in. She appears to be much younger than Howard, somewhere in her late twenties at the most. She’s got bleached blond hair and Tony’s eyes, a unique shade between green and brown. “Come in, I’m so sorry for the mess, who would’ve thought having a baby would be so crazy!”

She twirls on her heel and leads him through the fancily-furnished mansion to the living room. He notes the marble floors, crystal chandeliers and expensive wooden doors—he’s always known Howard was rich, after all, he works on very high tech weapons with very high-esteemed people but Steve never stopped to think about what exactly that meant.

He finds Howard on his feet with a bundle cradled in his arms, rocking it frantically left and right. The sight would have been comical had he not looked so out of his depth. “Howard, it’s good to see you again.”

Howard shoots him a look, something that translates somewhat into “help”, and Steve isn’t completely sure if that’s what compelled him to approach his old friend that now wears a different face and hold his hands out in askance, “May I?”

Howard’s eyebrows shoot up in blatant disbelief but he’s quick to hand the tot over, “By all means.”

The relief in his voice doesn’t escape Steve, who sends him a reassuring smile as he presses the wailing baby—no, Tony—to his chest and coos softly at him.

He ponders, then, about what his Tony’s reaction would be to seeing him like this. The boy is too young to resemble his future self in any way at barely a week old, eyes still that cloudy shade of blue possessed by all newborn babies. And despite that, Steve is in awe, that he’s holding the baby form of Tony.

Tony begins to calm and suddenly goes silent, like he might have recognised a sort of familiarity in Steve, a sort of guaranteed safety. He knows this because Howard is gaping at him and Maria is wide-eyed. “He hasn’t stopped crying for two days. Tell me Cap, are you a super nanny too?”

Steve shoots him a glare, even though this was the first flicker of his Howard since he’s returned. “Ha ha.” He replies sarcastically.

Little Tony whimpers softly as if in protest against Steve paying anyone else a shred of attention in his presence and Steve finds himself grinning. “I’ve got you,” he reassures and runs his index down a silky-soft cheek.

He’s secretly surprised at how much peace the presence of baby Tony gives him, but the warmth radiating from within his arms is unmistakable. This Tony pulses with life, a little miracle, and Steve presses his nose against the soft round head of brown hair noting the strong smell of powder and milk.

“You’re hired,” Howard announces, which earns him another glare but Steve can’t deny the immense longing that fills him. He could help do right by this Tony, protect him, guide him and most importantly, keep him alive.

“I’ve got you,” He whispers again when Tony hiccups, and means it.


End file.
